Redux, p.17
Redux, page 17
“Figures,” he muttered. “The scroll must be in one of those mausoleums. We need to get closer, so we can figure out exactly where it is.” He debated for a second, then came up with a plan. “Wait here. Once I find the fragment, I’ll signal for you to cause a distraction. Draw the guardian away and I’ll steal the spell.”
He paused to wait for me to nod, then dropped to the ground and scurried away on all fours. I watched him scuttle into the fog, smirking inwardly. It never failed to amuse me when he went into cockroach mode.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I STUDIED THE CLOSEST zombies as I listened intently for Ruen’s signal. They stood as still as statues, with their long chins resting against their chests. The rank stench of rotting flesh filled my nostrils, but trolls weren’t disgusted by bad smells. Not even the sight of their bones peeking out through their putrid flesh bothered me.
One of the inert zombies suddenly twitched, then stirred. Others also began to show signs of waking from their slumber. Ruen had moved out of my sight, but I could sense him near the mausoleums. He was so close to the guardian that he should have spotted it by now.
A low moan came from one of the walking dead. It took a step towards the crypts and a chunk of flesh fell off its leg to splatter on the ground. It seemed it had been a long time since the overlord had sent any of his soldiers to the graveyard. This was the first time they’d awakened in at least a few years. I figured Ruen’s close proximity to the scroll had triggered them into action.
The undead began to move all around me. One of them spotted me and let out a loud, rasping noise. Its vocal cords had rotted away, but it was enough to alert its master about the intruder.
“Run!” Ruen shouted in panic as the entire army of zombies turned in my direction. “The guardian is a lich!” he added, then raced around the throng towards me.
“Gra scro?” I asked, but he couldn’t understand my question if he’d grabbed the scroll.
The vampire barreled past the shambling horrors with a look of pure dread on his face. He looked over his shoulder as I felt the guardian coming closer.
I caught a glimpse of a tall, shadowy being, but the fog was too dense to see it clearly.
Ruen grabbed hold of my arm and tugged me into motion as fleshless, bony hands reached for us. I took off running, but couldn’t sense any magic on him. He didn’t have the fragment and we couldn’t leave without it. I had no idea what a lich was, but it seemed to be controlling the zombies.
My ex-partner didn’t realize I’d stopped and had turned back. I felt him speeding away as I circled around the increasingly aware corpses. The lich moved closer until I could see it clearly. It had to be a ghost of some sort, since it was floating a foot above the ground. Its face was skeletal beneath the shroud of black mist that surrounded it. Lifting a hand, it pointed at me. “Kill,” it ordered in a hollow, lifeless voice.
“Saige!” Ruen shouted in annoyance.
“Scro!” I shouted back. He let out a screech of frustration when he figured out I intended to steal the scroll rather than flee like he had.
“Don’t let the lich touch you!” he called out over the moans, groans and other noises the undead army was making. “It’ll steal your soul and turn you into one of its minions!”
He didn’t have a soul, or so I imagined, so I wasn’t sure why he’d run away from the lich. I was surrounded by zombies by now, so I swung my hammer to decapitate the closest ones. They fell, but the lich used death magic to piece them back together. Some were missing limbs, but they were still functional.
The lich swept through a large headstone, proving it was insubstantial. Its eyeless sockets were fixed on me, accurately guessing I’d come to steal its prize. Hands grasped hold of me and fingers became tangled in my long fur. The zombies were trying to hold me still so their master could reap my soul and turn me into one of them.
Swinging my hammer in an arc, I cleared the way ahead, then broke into a lumbering run. Zombies clung to my back and dismembered arms hung from me like grisly trophies. I yanked the clingers free as I careened through the shuffling mob. They were strong, but even stupider than I was. I might have been in trouble if they’d been capable of working together. Since their brains were soupy black liquid, they didn’t have the capacity to plan. The lich couldn’t give them complex orders, even with all of its powerful dark magic.
I blundered through the boneyard, dodging around the tombstones. My hammer swung constantly, forging a path through the throng. They were so dense around the crypts that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to fight my way through them.
A small crypt was just off to the left, so I bunched my muscles and leaped up onto it. I felt Ruen speeding towards me, but I also sensed the lich floating closer.
“Scro?” I shouted, hoping the vamp would give me some insight into where the fragment was.
“It’s in the biggest crypt, a hundred yards directly in front of you!” he called out. “I’ll distract the lich, you get the scroll!”
I grunted in acknowledgement, then sprang onto the roof of the next mausoleum. Ruen’s knives lashed out, slicing into his foes as he cackled in mad delight. The lich veered towards him, but it didn’t try to attack him. Just as I’d figured, the spirit couldn’t leech out his soul, because it was already gone. I’d never heard of vampires being reanimated as zombies. They turned to ash when they died, so maybe that was why.
Leaping from crypt to crypt, I lost my balance when the roof I landed on sloped sharply. I slammed the hammer into the stone before I could slide to the ground, creating a large hole in it. Pulling myself upwards, I reached the top, then took stock. The largest mausoleum was just ahead. Made out of thick stone, it loomed in the fog. The door was made from stone as well and it didn’t have a handle. Not even Ruen would be able to smash his way inside it.
The lich drifted past my perch and vanished through the door to guard the parchment. “Frugging frug,” I muttered.
Ruen leaped up onto the top of the crypt to land next to me. He was splattered in noisome fluids and gobbets of rotting flesh. “You should have run when I told you to!” he scolded me. “Lord Gilden will kill me if the lich turns you into a zombie!”
I rolled my eyes, then gestured at the stone building. “Scro!” I reminded him.
“I was going to go back for it once you were safe,” he said in annoyance. “The lich can’t harm me.”
I gestured at the hundreds of zombies that had gathered around us, then looked at him in sardonic expectation. We both knew he wouldn’t have been able to fight his way through all of them.
“I would have come up with a plan,” Ruen muttered. “Now the lich is back in its lair and we have no way of getting into the crypt.”
Holding up my hammer, I mimed swinging it at the roof. The roofs weren’t as dense as the rest of the structures, so it would be the only way to get inside.
“Hmm,” he mused. “I guess that could work, but you’ll have to be quick. Smash a hole big enough for me to climb through, then run before the lich can touch you.”
I nodded in understanding, trusting him to retrieve the parchment. He might hate me now, but he wasn’t going to let Drake down. It seems our boss still felt something for me if he’d threatened Ruen with death if I died during the mission. He’d have to get over it soon, since he was betrothed to someone else.
Thinking about the dragon I loved marrying the bimbo was enough for my anger to flare to life. Had he been courting her the entire time we’d been flirting and having occasional bouts of sex? I felt like a fool even though I’d known deep down that I didn’t stand a chance with him. Well, he’d had his fun and now it was over. I would fulfil my duty to save our world, but that didn’t mean I had to put myself through the agony of seeing him again.
“Are you ready?” Ruen asked.
I nodded in grim determination, then sprang into action.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
HOLDING MY WEAPON READY, I leaped through the air. I landed on the roof of the crypt where the lich was lurking and swung the hammer as hard as I could. Stone shattered, but it took two more blows before I made a hole large enough for Ruen to squirm through.
“Get out of here before the lich catches you!” the vampire called out.
I sensed the guardian rising and jumped onto the roof of another mausoleum. Using the rooftops to stay above the undead army, I had no choice but to descend when the crypts came to an end. Launching myself at a bunch of zombies, I bowled them over and glanced over my shoulder. I saw a brief glow of fuzzy blue light on the roof of the lich’s lair and figured Ruen had already nabbed the scroll.
Undead hands reached for me, trying to pull me backwards and slow me down. The guardian was drifting towards me, but it couldn’t move very fast. I fought my way free, then put my head down and picked up speed. Knocking my opponents aside as I barged into them, I swung my weapon in a continual arc to clear the way.
I followed my own scent back through the graveyard. Aurora had moved from the spot where we’d left her. I picked up on dozens of pimples and boils near the entrance to the cemetery, then sensed a carbuncle. It seemed the overlord of the realm once again knew we were here and he’d brought soldiers for backup.
Ruen had used his vampiric speed to blast past me and zoomed back to Aurora. I could feel the overlord and his lackeys heading in their direction as I neared the boundary of the cemetery. A fight was inevitable, so there was no point in delaying it. I roared in challenge as I burst through the gate, then charged at the soldiers.
“Troll!” one of them screeched in terror.
“Kill it!” the overlord ordered, turning to face me.
Screams of shock and pain rang out as I collided with the guards. They all wore metal armor and carried a variety of weapons. My hammer smashed through their feeble protection with ease to stave in ribs and crack open skulls.
I worked my way to their ruler until I could see him clearly. He stood head and shoulders taller than the others and wore ornate armor. A weird black vapor hung around him, giving him an unearthly appearance. His face was shadowed inside his helmet, but his eyes glowed with pale gray light. The vapor reminded me of the mist that hung around the lich, but he didn’t have the ability to use death magic.
My newest nemesis swung his sword at me, but I knocked it away with my hammer. I could sense the lich slowly moving towards us. A soldier’s spear tried to pierce my back, but couldn’t penetrate my thick fur and skin. I was surrounded by dozens of enemies. It wasn’t going to be easy to delay them for several minutes on my own.
A shrill shriek shattered the eardrums of the soldiers who were guarding the overlord’s back. More were captured by a sex fantasy that knocked them out after they climaxed. My companions had come to my rescue when they’d realized I wasn’t going to flee.
Ruen’s knives flashed with eerie speed. He cackled with murderous delight as he slaughtered his opponents. Aurora grimly stabbed the unconscious soldiers to death before they could rouse from their comas. The overlord shouted orders at his minions, but they were too terrified to listen to him.
I lashed out with my weapon, fist and feet, ignoring the occasional stabs that had no effect on me. The overlord snarled in fury and shoved his minions aside to engage me again. We traded blows, with mine leaving huge dents in his armor and his sword doing little damage to me. A few of his swings stung a bit and he chopped off some of my fur. Ruen and Aurora were decimating his army, but more were arriving. I sensed at least a hundred more guards joining the battle.
“You’ll never succeed in your quest to obtain all nine pieces of the scroll,” the overlord said in a low, gloating tone. “We will invade your world and become its new masters and no one can stop us!”
“Frug ylu,” I said, unable to tell him that he wouldn’t be ruling his own realm for much longer, let alone my world.
He drew his arm back to skewer me with his sword, but his time had run out. My arms were longer than his and I could move a lot faster than he realized. I caught hold of his wrist before he could thrust his weapon at me, then spun around and hurled him through the air.
Seeing the lich floating towards him, the overlord screamed and futilely tried to stab the specter. The lich reached out with an insubstantial, bony hand and tore my foe’s soul out of his body before it hit the ground. I felt magic emanate from the corpse and dissipate, then frowned when the guardian paused. It bent to peer at the armored body almost quizzically. Instead of raising the overlord as a zombie, it shuddered, then appeared to be caught in an internal struggle.
Zombies lurched out of the cemetery to target the soldiers. Ruen and Aurora broke off from fighting and called out to me. I knew it was time to go, but something weird was happening with the lich. It doubled over, then jerked and gasped. It lifted its hand as if it was trying to grasp something that I couldn’t see. It wailed in anger and dismay and almost seemed as if it had lost part of itself.
“Let’s go!” Ruen said, appearing beside me and yanking on my arm.
The guardian howled in fury and turned on the overlord’s minions. It swept through them, reaping their souls and killing them instantly.
Turning away from the slaughter, I felt panic licking at me. Something very strange had just happened, but I didn’t know what the hell I’d seen. I tossed Ruen onto my back, then raced over to Aurora. She had all of our gear, including the spell fragment Ruen had handed to her. The demon clambered onto my back, then the good ship Saige got the hell out of there.
I raced away from the cemetery, following our scents, since my eyesight was so poor. Aurora and Ruen kept looking backwards to make sure we weren’t being pursued. I already knew there would be no survivors from the battle. There never were. All witnesses were wiped out, except for the guardians and their helpers when they had some backup.
My energy ran out after a few hours and I had to stop. Ruen went in search of food, while I hunkered on the ground to gnaw on meat Aurora handed me.
“How can the overlords still think they’ll invade our world after we’ve stolen half of the spell fragments?” Aurora asked in bewilderment. She’d heard the overlord’s smug comments while I’d been fighting him.
I shrugged, then opened my mouth for more food. She tossed a large chunk of feline meat into my maw.
“Five of the rulers are dead now,” she mused. “We’ve only got four more pieces of the scroll to find, then the danger of invasion will be over.”
A chill swept through me despite that fact. I mused about the lich’s reaction after it had reaped the overlord’s soul. I’d felt like something had been off about the rulers of the realms ever since we’d begun these missions. They might differ wildly in appearance, but they were similar in other aspects. They all wore ornate armor and magic was released from their bodies when they died. I didn’t have answers to the questions that crowded my mind. I couldn’t even voice them in my troll form.
Ruen returned with food and I ate my fill. His belly sloshed with blood as he and Aurora butchered the carcasses. My bestie found a stream for them to wash up in after she refilled her waterskin. Once we were ready, I ran until dawn, then continued on long after the vampire was safely stashed in his sleeping sack.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
WE’D INTENDED TO DETOUR around the mountain range where the trolls were living. Unfortunately, that plan went out the window after Ruen spent a couple of hours scouting when he rose for the night.
“I found a huge crevice heading straight for the mountain range over there,” he reported, gesturing to our left. “It’s far too wide for us to cross it.” We hadn’t seen it on our way here, since it had been too distant.
“What about the other end of the range?” Aurora queried.
“Hundreds of soldiers have gathered on the main road and the surrounding area,” he said dourly. “The overlord has made very sure we can’t use the road to return to the portal.”
“We’re going to have to try to slip past the trolls, aren’t we?” she said with a grimace.
“It seems like our best option,” he figured. “At least there were only fifty or so trolls. We managed to get past them once. With luck, you can cast another sex fantasy on them if they surround us again. We might be able to leave their territory without fighting the entire tribe.”
I could tell by the look of anticipation in his empty eyes that he was secretly hoping we would have to fight them. Trolls would be far worthier opponents than mere soldiers or zombies. They were carbuncles, which meant they were strong and dangerous. Their leader was a sepsis and equal to me in strength. A confrontation between us would be memorable, but best to be avoided.
We still had another night and day of travel before we would reach the foothills, so we got moving. Aurora fed me constantly so I could keep up my fast pace. I stopped at dawn for a rest, then sped onwards with Ruen slung over my shoulder. I’d stopped using him as my pillow after I’d realized our partnership was well and truly over. I now slept apart from them. Aurora seemed to understand my need for space. This mission was hard for all of us, but especially her, since she was torn between us.
Squeaking noises woke me after dark. Rats had groomed me again while I’d slept. My fur was sleek and devoid of traces of blood and tiny chunks of meat from my messy eating. One of the rodents was perched on my chest when I opened my eyes. It squeaked at me, then scampered off into the ashy gray grass.
It was too quiet and something felt wrong. Sitting up, I listened intently as I sent out my senses. Alarm flashed through me when I realized Aurora and Ruen were missing. I couldn’t feel them anywhere close by. Taking a deep whiff of air, I smelled several scents that made my hackles rise and I growled deep in my throat.
Trolls had infiltrated our camp and had taken my companions. The rat had tried to warn me, but I hadn’t understood it. I raced to the clearing in the trees where I’d dumped the vampire to find our gear had been left behind. The meat sacks were empty and reeked of troll. They’d snacked on our supplies before stealing away with the leech and demon. Their scents were at least a couple of hours old, so they’d come here before nightfall while Ruen had still been dead to the world.
